Indigenising Shakespeare: A study of Maqbool and Omkara

Parvin Sultana

[Published in Singularities, Vol 1 Issue 2, August, 2014, 49-55]

Abstract: Cinematic adaptations of novels are nothing new. And Shakespeare have been quite a
favourite when it came to such adaptations. While his plays written for 16th century Elizabethan
era, have been adapted a large number of time, they continue to inspire newer works of
adaptation pointing to the timeless nature of his works. The Bard refuses to be limited by time
and space. Even non-western literary circles have been influenced by Shakespeare to a great
extent. Be it literature, theatre or cinematic adaptations, his works have influenced every genre of
creative undertakings. Bollywood is no exception. While earlier his influence went
unacknowledged, in recent times, directors have started paying tribute to the maestro through
their works. Shakespeare continues to be about high culture and sophistication and Indian film
directors are trying to cash in on that. Vishal Bhardwaj directed two films- Maqbool and Omkara
and claims to have adapted them from Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Othello respectively. This
paper will try to understand how Bhardwaj have adapted plays written for Elizabethan era and
situated them in a highly different context. Through it, the paper will try to explore the parallels
as well as the divergent points in the films from their original inspirations and point out to the
eternal timeless elements in Shakespeare’s works which makes it adaptable across cultures and
timeline.

Keywords: Shakespeare, Bollywood, Cinematic adaptations, Omkara, Maqbool.

1. Introduction

The cinema has been interested in Shakespeare since its earliest days. Screen adaptations
of his plays have served various purposes including proving the relevance of Shakespeare to our
times as well as manifesting the ability of the cinema to cope with works originally written for
the Elizabethan theatre. Cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays can be seen as a case of
inter-semiotic and inter-temporal translation. While the medium of presentation was changed, so
was the context of the plays. Shakespeare’s plays have originated in a specific cultural system-
16th century English literature, the playwright deviated from them and introduced some
additional complexity. So while writing in that context, Shakespeare tried to infuse something
new and different in his plays. For example: he transformed the then common play of vengeance
into what we now call a “Shakespearean tragedy”, something unique and different from other
plays of similar genre. (Weissbrod, 2006) So even in their originality, the plays had certain
unique characteristics.

Adaptation of literary works for theatre and cinema are different as these two media are
quite different. Going back to the Elizabethan theatre’s era, the use of settings and decorations
were minimal, all performances took place during the day time and as women were not allowed
to act on stage, young boys played the role of women. The theatre at that point of time had
technical limitations. Moreover the target audience was also very specific. But cinematic
adaptations have certain advantages as they can successfully create the illusion of reality on
stage. Technical advancement have also changed the nature of theatrical as well as cinematic
presentations. It has also broadened the consumption of such production on a more universal
level. Films were more easily accessible because of mass production and consumption.

2. Cinematic Adaptations

Cinema as a medium is much younger than theatre. In its initial days, cinema simulated
theatre since it lacked its own repertoire. So it depended a lot on theatre for material. But as
technology became more sophisticated, films moved from silent to talkies and from black and
white to colour as well as from 2-D to 3-D and 4-D. However most cinematic adaptations of
Shakespeare usually tend to retain elements of theatrical models. This may be due to respect for
the original works or to render something exotic to the production. While cinematic adaptations
are nothing new, the delicacy required in transmutation from books to celluloid, has often led to
much consternation amidst Hollywood elites. Many have raised concerns that callous adaptations
often do tremendous injustice to original works of art. Translation across medium comes with its
own limitations. It is often transliteration.

Adaptation of Shakespeare has not been limited to the West only. He has influenced
literature, films in non western parts of the world including India as well. Many Indian writers
find their source of inspiration in Shakespeare. His plays articulated human emotions in a
timeless way. His plays are often not essentially bound by temporal contexts which facilitates its
translation in various contexts. Cinematic and theatrical adaptations of his plays in India are also
very common.

Adaptation process looks at how meaning is created with words in literary text and how
that meaning is translated into the visual image. Although cinematic adaptations have a lot of
potential, there are certain limitations. The language of written text is satirical, classy and
metaphorical which cannot easily be conveyed through cinematic languages. Adaptation of
written text into films in itself can be of three types—a) Literal-- in which case the reproduction
of plot and attending details is as close as possible, b) Traditional – while the overall persona of
the text is maintained, the director also tries to make certain adjustments in the visual
representation and c) Radical – where the director reshapes the book in extreme ways, by re-
interpreting the story after relocating it in terms of time, setting, place etc. Shakespeare’s works
have seen almost all kinds of adaptations.

Some of the very first experiments in film making involved plays by Shakespeare and his
works proved to be very popular with film makers for over a century. Over 200 versions of films
have been made based on his plays. While such cinematic adaptations are an interesting study in
inter-semiotic translations, the angle of a globalised world and culture brings forth other issues.
Such cinematic adaptations in a globalised world try to seek commonality as it simultaneously
prioritizes diversity. Cinematic usages of Shakespeare implicitly espouse Shakespeare’s
continued relevance. Shakespearean plays can take place anywhere in modern day city as
Shakespeare was not for an age, but for all time. However certain cinematic adaptations of
Shakespeare have been highly localized. And such localization have actually given rise to
something hybrid in nature.

The first Shakespearean film in any country was made in 1899, a simple photographic
record of a small part of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s stage production of King John. The next
few decades would see varied cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. At first it was the
silent movies and then with talkies, the experimentation of representing Shakespearean plays
through the medium of films continued.

3. Shakespeare in India
 Shakespeare was introduced in India as a part of the Empire’s cultural and political
investment. Of many things that came to India from the Empire, Shakespeare was one of the
most important and most enduring. Sri Aurobindo even regarded Shakespeare as superior to
Kalidasa and particularly valued the former’s essential force, beauty and creativity. (Khan, 2002)
Shakespeare became considerably popular since his very introduction in India. While the British
playhouses staged his plays and created an appetite for theatrical performances amongst educated
Indians, making his plays a part of curriculum in the newly established Hindu College induced in
the students a taste for such drama and taught how to appreciate it. His plays were translated in
almost every Indian language. And interestingly the Indian context was also taken into account.
This is proven by the fact that few changes were made to the plays inspired by Shakespeare’s
original works. For example, in the Bengali adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, the central
role was shifted from Antonio to Bhanumati. In another translation, the Duke is referred to as
Rajyapal which is more specific to India.

His literature has transgressed the time and space limitations and has been ruling the
Indian literary circles for more than a century now. His influence cannot be separated from the
history of stage performance as most versions were composed mainly for the stage. Apart from
being a source of inspiration theatrical plays, it also forms a crucial part of the curriculum for
teaching, training, research and extension in universities and colleges. It has also influenced
Indian theatre as well as cinema. Popular Indian playwrights like Habib Tanveer have used
Shakespearean plays in a local context in an interesting way. His plays have shown the
universality of Shakespearean plays by contextualizing them to the rural and tribal belt in India.
Be it an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Kam Dev ka Apna Basant Ritu ka Sapna
in which the courtesans spoke Urdu while the commoners spoke Chattisgarhi or other works of
Tanveer. Such nuances showed a class gap between the people and the noble class. Tanveer’s
achievement with Shakespearean plays remains in the fact that he was able to recreate such plays
with novices from Chattisgarh and could also induce folk tribal music in the plays. This in itself
brings to light the immense potentialities that Shakespeare’s plays hold.

Needless to say, Shakespeare came to constitute the predominant literary and poetic
inspiration from the West in most Indian languages. Some translations have been more direct
than the others. Works influenced by him form a broad spectrum extending from brief prose
retellings to extremely free adaptations. An exact numerical account may not be possible as
certain Indianized adaptations often hold out no clue to their Shakespearean origin. The
Shakespearean model had certain other formative effects on the structure, themes and other
‘literary’ aspects of early modern Indian drama. A vital contribution was the concept of tragedy,
virtually unknown in classical Sanskrit drama.

4. Bollywood and Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s influence has not been limited to only Indian theatre or literature. It has
influenced Indian cinema as well. Bollywood’s relation with Shakespeare goes way back to 1941
when J J Madan dapted Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice for his film Zalim Saudagar.
Later many other adaptations came up—Gulzar’s Angoor from Comedy of Errors etc. Recently
the hit adaptations by Vishal Bhardwaj—Maqbool (Macbeth) and Omkara (Othello) have led to
a renewed interest in the Bard’s masterpieces. This is shown by movies like 10 ml Love (A
Midsummer Night’s Dream), Issaq and Ishaqzaade (Romeo and Juliet). Adaptations of
Shakespeare has been such that a colonizing master text became and remains to this day, the
most translated and adapted, performed and published Western author. Romeo and Juliet has
been very popular with Indian film makers. Habib Faisal, the director of Ishaaqzaade added an
interesting twist by taking the romance to hinterland of Uttar Pradesh and bringing into the
burning issue of Khap Panchayats which oppose marriage between particular clans. Commenting
on the Bard’s influence, literary Pundits claim that Bollywood may have struggled had there
been no Shakespeare to inspire and borrow from. However many also point out that the
existential and philosophical elements of Shakespeare’s works already existed in Indian epics
like Ramayana and Mahabharata.

5. Indianising Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s presence in popular Hindi films can be found in both direct adaptations, often
influenced directly by Parsi theatre performance, and in the use of several themes and motifs
whose sources can be traced back to Shakespeare (Gruss, 2009). Bollywood’s rediscovering
Shakespeare comes at a time when it is increasingly banking on literature. This trend started in a
big way when the film trade reaped rich dividends from Sarat Chandra’s Devdas, the global
acclaim for the adapted version of Rabindranath Tagore’s Chokher Bali and the critical thumbs
up to Sarat Chandra’s Parineeta- the Married Woman. To understand his continued influence and
the potentiality of his plays to be indigenized, this paper will look closely at two such acclaimed
adaptations. They are Maqbool and Omkara, both directed by Vishal Bharadwaj.

a) Macbeth meets Maqbool:

In the rich history of Shakespearean translation and adaptation, Macbeth occupies an
important place. Macbeth has found a long and productive life on celluloid. Like his other
works, Macbeth also has the qualities of timelessness and volatility which enables its
reproduction in different backgrounds. It is one of Shakespeare’s shortest works. The
play displays how over-psychological needs of a person drive him or her to act. The
protagonist Macbeth’s relationship with his wife, the three witches and Banquo shows the
psychological and physical changes he underwent in his hunger for power. How his
wife’s instigations pushed him over the edge and with what repercussions is crafted
excellently in the play.
Although there have been many adaptations of Macbeth, the most popular ones are
Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957), Roman Polanski’s Macbeth (1971), Orson
Welles Macbeth (1948) etc. Macbeth have also been adapted by Bollywood film director
Vishal Bhardwaj. Coming to Vishal Bhardwaj’s 2004 film Maqbool, set in the dark
underworld of Mumbai, the film retained its Bollywood features such as festivities,
songs, dances.
Based in the underworld of Mumbai, the film is about the kind of power struggles
that is a constant factor in the underbelly of the city. Abbaji played by Pankaj Kapoor in
one of his finest works, heads a crime family. He has a young protégé Maqbool played by
the talented Irrfan Khan. Bhardwaj’s choice of actors points to his zeal of making serious
cinema as opposed to popular commercial Bollywood flicks. Abbaji’s mistress Nimmi is
played by Tabu, an actor known for her excellent acting skills. Nimmi fell from the
favour of Abbaji owing to a younger woman. She makes up for this loss by taking a love
interest in the young Maqbool and instigating him to take Abbaji’s place as the head by
killing him. Borrowing from Macbeth’s core theme, Abbaji who is the head of a crime
family is murdered by his mistress Nimmi’s ambitious lover Maqbool. The film
successfully blended the basic plot structure of Shakespeare’s play with popular gangland
films of Bollywood.
 The adaptation has certain points of convergence as well as divergence with regard
to the original piece of work. The film is much more than a mere cinematic
representation. It is rather a new interpretation. Bhardwaj’s Maqbool is shifted to the dark
spaces of the Mumbai mafia popularly referred to as the underworld. The murder of rival
gang lords is normalized in such a set up. The law of this land is similar to the era
Shakespeare wrote about - the pre modern era. The era of Macbeth is marked by feudal
laws which follows the strictures “Might is Right”. The feudal order needs to be
maintained and any subversion to that order leads to repercussions. While the underworld
subverts the laws of modern state, it in turn is guided by a code of conduct which infuses
the justice delivery mechanism amongst gangsters. Even this code of conduct is strictly
followed and any deviation is met by strict punishment. By locating the film in Mumbai’s
underworld, the director stretched the possibilities of power, ambition and evil and how
such imperatives are omnipresent. What is also interesting is the transformation of a royal
persona of Macbeth into a gangster Maqbool. Such transformation of nobility to outlaws
may convey a tinge of comic irony. While such transformation may initially seem
farfetched, the complex issues that the great Shakespearean tragedy raises was not lost in
Maqbool.
Maqbool’s elaboration of the supernatural is also remarkable. In the narrative of
Shakespeare, the witches play a crucial role in giving the narrative a shape.
Shakespeare’s three weird sisters/witches appear in the form of two corrupt clairvoyant
policemen Pandit and Purohit. Played by Om Puri and Nasiruddin Shah, these corrupt
policemen actively helped Abbaji in his illegal work. But these two not only predict what
will happen like the witches, rather they themselves influence the turn that the characters
lives would take. So one can say they act as supernatural agents obsessed with
maintaining some kind of balance of power in the underworld to serve their own interest.
Their decision not to kill Boti(a gangster) is crucial as Boti later kills Maqbool.
Coming to the pair of Maqbool and Nimmi, unlike Lord and Lady Macbeth, they
are not married, hence rendering their love forbidden in the Indian social set up. As
opposed to murdering solely for ambition, Maqbool is incited in many fronts by Nimmi
who fell from favour with Abbaji. Nimmi’s role turned it into a passion crime. Nimmi
manipulated Maqbool by making him dream of taking Abbaji’s place. However the
 remorse of what they did engulfed them completely. While unable to understand what
went wrong, But later Nimmi dies during childbirth and cause of guilt. Maqbool also
internalizes all his violent past deeds and dies at the hands of Riyaaz Boti, another
gangster from the group.

b) Othello in the heartlands of U.P

A tale of tragic love, it is adapted from 17th century classic, Othello and stars
actors like Ajay Devgan, Neseeruddin Shah and Kareena Kapoor. While contextualizing
it to the ground level politics of Uttar Pradesh, the lead Omkara played by Ajay Devgan
plays a Bahubali or a political fixer for a local politician. The narrative is quite securely
rooted in the setting of Uttar Pradesh which not only accounts for the characters but also
provides the messy setting of local corrupt politics.
The film dwells on the complexity of human relationships. Instead of putting
things as black and white, the film brings out the grey area. While in the context of
British empire, the Bard is also a token of Englishness, that could be used to justify
British colonialism, Bhardwaj’s project can be described as an attempt of post-colonial
rewriting and therefore a possible revision of Shakespeare’s position within a post
colonial India. This he achieves by appropriating Shakespeare’s masterpieces and
situating them to Indian cultural contexts and hence points to the possibility of finding
common grounds.

While race is a central theme in Othello, caste is given the same prerogative in
Omkara. This has to do with the parallel that can be drawn between race and caste and
also the centrality and peculiarity of caste system to India. However the director
transgressed only to some extent. Instead of making the dark complexioned Omi Shukla a
Dalit, he portrayed him as a half caste while the female lead Dolly Mishra played by
Kareena Kapoor is a Brahmin. But as the film moves ahead, the jealousy of love becomes
the main focus as opposed to caste.
Another factor that takes centrestage is power and ambition. The character of Iago
played by Saif Ali Khan and called Langda has multiple shades. Langda Tyagi is married
 to Omkara’s sister and hence he is family. Being a second lieutenant, he is also the
rightful heir to Omkara. But when it comes choosing an heir, Omkara chose a young
urban educated boy Kesu played by Viek Oberoi. He hoped Langda would understand the
tactical move of portraying an educated young guy as the successor. The film pushes to
the furthest point a victim exposition of Langda when it seems he is going to receive the
ceremonial plate but it is finally handed over to Kesu. The scene showing Langda
crowning himself after the ceremony with his own blood as he looks at himself in the
mirror, has a purpose of presenting a more sympathetic Iago. Billo, a free spirited dancer
is also given good screen time. It is through these characters that Bhardwaj Indianised the
Shakespearean play. The film then moves on to show how Langda capitalizes on the
insecurities of the jealous lover Omi to pave his own way for power and dispose of Kesu,
his rival. He played on the supposed treachery of Doli towards Omi by manipulating a
certain series of event. Even Doli’s father told Omkara that a daughter who can cheat her
father can never be loyal to anyone. All this was used by Langda meticulously to serve
his own purpose.
While the temporal and spatial context of Omkara is pretty farfetched and is
rooted in local politics, there are few converging points. Langda believes that Kesu is not
even deserving of what he got in the same way as Iago thinks of Michael Cassio who has
no real battle experience. Iago also makes up about a false affair between Desdemona and
Cassio. All this leads to Cassio being killed but when Othello discovers the
misunderstanding he does not kill Iago, rather leaves him to a life of pain and despair.
Similarly Omkara on discovering his mistake instead of punishing Langda, plunges a
knife in his own chest and kills himself.
While both Othello and Omkara is about ambition manipulating jealousy and
distrust, there are few points of divergence in the two stories. While Iago suspected
Othello of having cheated with his wife, Langda’s wife is a sister of Omkara. So Omkara
is not a lascivious manipulative person. Rather his only mistake has been choosing Kesu
over Langda overlooking Langda’s own political ambitions.

6. Conclusion
 Although Maqbool and Omkara have a clearly Indian flavor and appeal, their place
within the so-called Bollywood cinema is ambiguous because of their unique adaptation
of Bollywood’s characteristic features. Bhardwaj uses song sequences to the minimal and
only when it responds to the need of the storyline and not merely as fillers. The songs are
well integrated in the film’s narrative. Maqbool has just three songs shown as festive
interludes. Omkara’s song sequences do not include a change of spatial context- rather it
is more realistic and provides continuity to the narrative. What such masterly adaptations
has done is created a newer genre of films within Bollywood. While it popularized the
age old tradition of making films based on best sellers, it also carved a different space for
such hybrid films in Bollywood. Bhardwaj’s movies are not mere adaptation of
Shakespeare’s plays, rather he brings the changed temporal and spatial context in a very
strong way, giving a new kind of twist to popular movies. But how far has Bhardwaj
transgressed with regard to the limitations of a Bollywood film? His transgressions has
been measured, never something that will not be acceptable to the Bollywood audience.
Bhardwaj’s adaptations are not mere mirror representation of Shakespearean plays, rather
they add something to the plays and produce something new. This has been rendered
possible because of the timelessness of Shakespearean plays which frees it from the
limits of time and space. However one cannot deny the fact that such adaptations have
carved a newer space for such films which despite being written for a different time and
space still finds fertile ground for playing out in Indian context.

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Declaration:

To,

The Editor, Singularities – the Journal

Respected Sir,
 I would like to state that the article titled “Indigenizing Shakespeare: A Study of
Maqbool and Omkara”, has not been published anywhere and is not under consideration for
publication anywhere.

Thank you

Yours sincerely

Parvin Sultana

Assistant Professor, Dept of Political Science

Goalpara College, Assam

Biodata:

The author is currently working as an Assistant Professor in Goalpara College, Assam. She
finished her Mphil from Centre for Poltical Studies, School of Social Science, Jawaharlal Nehru
University. Her interest includes Development Politics, Gender, North East etc. She writes or
Newspapers and have published some articles in some journals as well as some chapters in
edited books.